HS2 yay or nay?

[BloodyHellKen]

With the recent discussion re: HS2 all over the news I've been wondering what the general consensus is and MN seems like a good place to start.

Do people feel it should:
a) have been stopped years ago
b) stopped now
c) completed

Personally I think it should have been stopped years ago as I always suspected it was a lot of money for very little gain (in fact I wouldn't even have started it). The money could have been better spent elsewhere IMO (eg a reliable service from Liverpool to Leeds via Manchester) and I don't understand why both Labour and Conservatives have been so wedded to it.

Anyone?

... ...

Days, surely?

I live 40 mins from Edinburgh, I thought it would be nice to take the train into the city for the day, the cost £16 a return. For even two adults £32 v £10 in petrol

I was recently pricing up a train journey of just over an hour from Pisa airport in Italy, €4 on the bus or €8 on the train. Much more regular services too.

Before they think of spending money on H2S they should be upgrading our regular network more regular services, running on time and more afforable

I remember the conservatives winning the election and there being talk of what they would do about HS2 and the spiralling cost and thinking please scrap it and being surprised when they didn't, and also try and blame it all on the previous Labour govt. I genuinely don't understand how it has so much support.

Exactly. Imagine, in 15 years we’ll all be in our Teslas on autopilot bombing it down the M6 at 120mph because driving is now so safe.

People need to start thinking outside the box.

It should be completed but it never should have been called HS2. Most people don’t even know where HS1 is. If anything it should have been called HC2 because the whole of it is to increase capacity - the extra speed is incidental. The idea is that by removing all the fast trains from the existing network you can run more frequent local, stopping services. The principle remains sound but it’s become a political football and so will get kicked into the long grass.

@AlecTrevelyan006 Chunnel ain’t it?

Thats' what I thought too

Don’t get me started on that short-sightedness.

In 30 years we’ll be flying our winged Teslas over to Calais straight off the white cliffs.

Still, Chunnel will work for the heavy trains I suppose.

A. It’s completely pointless and should never have started. The business case has never added up.

Also, the original “faster times between London and Birmingham” argument never made any sense. And the more recent “increased capacity on other lines” makes even less sense - where in the budget are the costs for the extra trains and drivers for these extra services? Ever travelled between London and Birmingham on the line that goes through Oxford? How does it solve the problem of my commuter train being delayed most days because it’s following a slow-moving freight train?

Turn the half-built section into a local service. Add some stations. That would make it useful.

The only people who have benefited from this is the vast army of consultants paid to deliver it.

Like so much of our infrastructure the railways are fucked and I can’t see how HS2 will improve anything.

t's going to end up like the M6 Toll - a massively expensive, environmentally destructive project that will struggle to turn a profit, and won't solve the 'problems' it was supposed to

Sorry for the derail but is the above correct? I always use the M6 Toll and find it really useful for avoiding that really awful bit of the M6 near Brum. It’s usually busy….I had no idea 🤷🏻‍♀️

We use it too, I love the M6 toll and wish all roads were that quiet 😂

I thought it was now making a profit, after many years of loss?

Agree @Hatesf1

Plus I hate F1 too

I'm in Nottingham and have a lot of friends in Long Eaton. And I completely agree with this.
Upgrade the east to west services, and transpennine. And links between big cities. It's quicker for me to drive to Birmingham than ge the train.

Hello All,

I'm off on the school run in a minute but I wanted to say thank you for responding to my original question :)

From your responses it would seem that most of you feel like I do - HS2 is a huge waste of money which quite possibly should have never begun and that the money could have been better spent elsewhere eg a better Trans Pennine route/Manchester to Birmingham route.

A special shout out to @DanielsDancingMonkey though for bucking the trend and politely explaining why they support HS2.

HS2 is absolutely decimating the countryside where I live including local wildlife and our village in particular. The mud and dust everywhere, nightwork noise disturbing sleep, constant lorries thundering on local roads beside pedestrians causing potholes that are damaging cars, not to mention the wonderful daily lottery of working out which local roads are open/closed this week to say nothing of endless diversions and temporary traffic lights everywhere which may or not be working on any given day.

And multiply this by who knows how many communities are directly affected in this way.

I get the big picture, that these local issues should all be overlooked for the greater final good/benefits to come etc etc, and if I could believe in this then perhaps I'd be able to focus on that. But it's an absolute shambles and this mindless destruction for absolutely no quantifiable benefit should never have been given the go ahead.

This is another thing I don't like about HS2, the affect it's had so far on nature.

This useless, incompetent government has got itself into a total mess on HS2. If these reports are correct, we will end up with the worst of all worlds : An unnecessary & vastly expensive new railway from Birmingham to London which doesn’t even go to central London. It will inevitably turn out to be a white elephant.

I would have built a new high speed railway between Leeds, Manchester & Liverpool before HS2. That would actually have been a serious project to level up the country.

But, given that we are where we are, HS2 should be finished, all of it, because that’s the only way we are going to get any economic benefits from the billions already spent.

I was always sceptical that it would ever come in existence and hated the thought of all the upheaval to peoples homes / villages/ nature and the countryside. A family I know has now left their farm at Stafford for it to stand pointlessly empty as government have bought it.
In 1991-1993 the then government compulsorily purchased our family home as the M6 ran along the back of our field. They were going to widen the M6 to four lanes from Bham to junc 19/20. Yet again, they failed to plan / cost it correctly and they ran out of money. Our home stood empty for 6 years and then the (new!) government offered it back to us (we refused).
The planners / government always thought that that part of the M6 should have 4 lanes though and that's where the grim smart motorways came in.

Should be finished off as was intended to be from the start. One of the reasons it cost much was to mitigate the environmental cost. Lots and lots of tunneling, while there has been an environmental cost it's much lower than it would have been. Also added time onto this project.
Could just have put the track the easiest route engineering wise , quicker less cost for construction and consultants. But an added cost for nature can't do both.

They've started it, it's ludicrous not to finish it.

People will look back and think WtF why didn't they finish the job.
A bit like we question why was so much rail infrastructure destroyed in the 60s.

Yes. The capacity is sorely needed.

It's been ill-conceived from the start. A wholesale re-evaluation of the rail network to more effectively utilise and improve existing lines should have been a priority, then building new capacity where needed. Cross-country lines across the UK are in a dire state and frankly connecting the regions better rather than funnelling down to London strikes me as a more effective way of 'levelling-up'.

What's the point of making it a 250mph line other than as a vanity project? The rolling stock and engine units won't be transferrable and the only UK distance worth covering using that speed is from Scotland and it won't be going anywhere near there anyway... Everywhere else in Europe with high speed capacity runs at 200mph.

I agree, I think it needs finishing. We're already way behind Europe on high speed transport and I do think the benefits will be apparent in decades to come. It would be a colossal waste to just stop now when it's partly done and currently of no use to anyone.

I would have started the Northern leg first though.